A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York

8/22/2019 A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York

1/17


2/17

xi

PROLOGUE

Anjelica in the yew tree at St. Clerans,

age seven

There was a shrine in my mothers bedroom when I was

growing up. The built-in wardrobe had a mirror on the

interior of both doors and a bureau inside, higher than I was,

with an array of perfume bottles and small objects on the surface

and a wall of burlap stretched above it. Pinned to the burlap was

a collage of things shed collected: pictures that shed torn out


3/17

xii

PROLOGUE

of magazines, poems, pomander balls, a foxs tail tied with a red

ribbon, a brooch Id bought her from Woolworths that spelled

mother in malachite, a photograph of Siobhn McKenna as

St. Joan. Standing between the glass doors, I loved to look at her

possessions, the mirrors reflecting me into infinity.

I was a lonely child. My brother Tony and I were never very

close, neither as children nor as adults, but I was tightly bound

to him. We were forced to be together because we were on our

own. Although I knew he loved me, I always felt that Tony hadit in for me, a bit, and that, a year older than I, he was always

having to fight for what he had. We were in the middle of the

Irish countryside, in County Galway, in the west of Ireland,

and we didnt see many other kids. We were tutored, and my

life was mostly fantasywishing that I were Catholic so that

I could have a Holy Communion, and wearing my mothers

tutus on the front lawn, hoping a husband would come along

so that I might marry him.

I also spent quite a lot of time in front of the bathroom mir-

ror. Nearby there was a stack of books. My favorites were The

Death of Manoleteand the cartoons of Charles Addams. I would

pretend to be Morticia Addams. I was drawn to her. I used to

pull my eyes back and see how Id look with slanted eyelids. Iliked Sophia Loren a lot. Id seen pictures of her, and she was

my ideal of female beauty at the time. Then I would pore over

the photographs of the great bullfighter Manolete, dressed in

his suit of lights, praying to the Madonna for her protection,

taking the cape under his arm, preparing to enter the bullring.

The solemnity, the ritual of the occasion, was tangible in the

pictures. Then the terrible aftermathManolete gored in the

groin, the blood black on the sand. It mystified me that even

though he obviously had won the fight, there were also photo-


4/17

xiii

PROLOGUE

graphs illustrating the subsequent slaughter of the bull. I felt it

was a gross injustice, and my heart wept for both the bull and

Manolete.

I found that I could make myself cry, very easily. Tony began

to question whether I wasnt using this ability to my advantage.

I think he had a point. But for me, it was always about feeling.

People often think that looking in the mirror is about narcis-

sism. Children look at their reflection to see who they are. And

they want to see what they can do with it, how plastic they canbe, if they can touch their nose with their tongue, or what it

looks like when they cross their eyes. There are a lot of things

to do in the mirror apart from just feasting on a sense of ones

physical beauty.


5/17

PART ON E

IRELAND

Tony Veiller, Anjelica and Mindy, Ricki with Shu-Shu,

Seamus, Joan Buck, John Huston, and Tony Huston

with Moses and Flash, the Big House lawn,

St. Clerans, Whitsun, 1962


6/17

3

CHAPTER

Ricki with Anjelica,

age three months, New York City

Iwas born at 6:29 P.M. on July 8, 1951, at the Cedars of Lebanon

Hospital, in Los Angeles. At eight pounds, thirteen ounces,

I was a big, healthy baby. The news of my arrival was cabled

promptly to the post office in the township of Butiaba in west-

ern Uganda. Two days later, a barefoot runner bearing a tele-

gram finally arrived at Murchison Falls, a waterfall on the Nile,

deep in the heart of the Belgian Congo, where The African Queen

was being filmed.


7/17

ANJELICA HUSTON

4

My father, John Marcellus Huston, was a director renowned

for his adventurous style and audacious nature. Even though it

was considered foolhardy, he had persuaded not only Katharine

Hepburn, an actress in her prime, but also Humphrey Bogart,

who brought along his famously beautiful wife, the movie star

Lauren Bacall, to share the hazardous journey. My mother,

heavily pregnant, had stayed behind in Los Angeles with my

one-year-old brother, Tony.

When the messenger handed the telegram to my father, heglanced at it, then put it in his pocket. Katie Hepburn exclaimed,

For Gods sakes, John, what does it say? and Dad replied, Its

a girl. Her name is Anjelica.

Dad was six feet two and long-legged, taller and stronger and

with a more beautiful voice than anybody. His hair was salt-

and-pepper; he had the broken nose of a boxer and a dramatic

air about him. I dont remember ever seeing him run; rather, he

ambled, or took long, fast strides. He walked loose-limbed and

swaybacked, like an American, but dressed like an English gen-

tleman: corduroy trousers, crisp shirts, knotted silk ties, jack-

ets with suede elbows, tweed caps, fine custom-made leather

shoes, and pajamas from Sulka with his initials on the pocket.He smelled of fresh tobacco and Guerlains lime cologne. An

omnipresent cigarette dangled from his fingers; it was almost

an extension of his body. His tone was carefully unstudied and

casual. His tastes were eclectic. At work he wore bush jackets

and khakis, as if going to war.

Over the years, Ive heard my father described as a Lothario,

a drinker, a gambler, a mans man, more interested in killing big

game than in making movies. It is true that he was extravagant

and opinionated. But Dad was complicated, self-educated for


8/17

A STORY LATELY TOLD

5

the most part, inquisitive, and well read. Not only women but

men of all ages fell in love with my father, with that strange loy-

alty and forbearance men reserve for one another. They were

drawn to his wisdom, his humor, his magnanimous power; they

considered him a lion, a leader, the pirate they wished they had

the audacity to be. Although there were few who commanded

his attention, Dad liked to admire other men, and he had a firm

regard for artists, athletes, the titled, the very rich, and the very

talented. Most of all, he loved characters, people who made himlaugh and wonder about life.

Dad always said he wanted to be a painter but was never

going to be great at it, which was why he became a director.

He was born in Nevada, Missouri, on August 5, 1906, the only

child of Rhea Gore and Walter Huston. His mothers side of

the family was of English and Welsh descent. Rheas grandfa-

ther William Richardson had been a general in the Civil War

as well as attorney general of the state of Ohio, and had lost

an arm at Chancellorsville. A silver sword presented to him by

his regiment was later passed down to my brother Tony. Wil-

liams daughter, Adelia, had married a prospector, John Gore,

who started up several newspapers from Kansas to New York.

A cowboy, a settler, a saloon owner, a judge, a professionalgambler, and a confirmed alcoholic, he once won the town of

Nevada in a poker game.

After Rhea was born, in 1881, Adelia became the editor of

one of John Gores publications, but she had already decided

she would have to leave him. Sent to a convent school, Rhea

consequently underwent a spiritual crisis, having made a pact

with God to sacrifice her life so that her parents might continue

to live together.

As a young woman, Rhea, like her parents, was drawn to


9/17

ANJELICA HUSTON

6

journalism. She began writing freelance newspaper articles in

St. Louis and was able to obtain free passes to shows and plays

as a reviewer. When a show called The Sign of the Crosscame to

town, she went backstage to interview the leading man, Wil-

son Barrett. She noticed someone who appeared to be an older

actor, wearing a full beard and carrying a staff, but with the air

of a much younger man. It was Thanksgiving a few days later

when she returned to the lobby of her hotel, feeling alone in the

world, and fell into conversation with a young man wearing redslippers. He told her that his name was Walter and that he was

an actor. He explained that his mother had made the slippers

for him, and invited Rhea to dinner. She wrote afterward, Had

it not been for a pair of red crocheted slippers, things would

undoubtedly not be what they are todaytheir laces have tan-

gled my life and knotted my heart strings in a way that cannot

be undone.

Walter was born in Toronto in 1884, the fourth child of

Elizabeth McGibbon and Robert Houghston. His family, of

Scotch-Irish descent, were educators, engineers, and lawyers.

Elizabeths mother was a schoolteacher, and Roberts father,

Alexander, was a pioneer who had settled in Ontario, Canada.

Walter was an indifferent student, but early on displayed a pas-sion for the variety shows at the Shea Theater. He and his best

friend and older cousin, Archie, were inspired to create their

own shows in the basement of Walters house. Walters sister,

Margaret Carrington, was a gifted opera singer, credited with

being the first person in America to sing Debussy.

After several attempts at conventional jobs, Walter and

Archie earned enough money to enroll in acting school, then

joined a traveling theater troupe. Although they rarely received

a salary, they loved the life and decided to jump a boxcar on a


10/17

A STORY LATELY TOLD

7

freight train to New York. They were seventeen years old and

ready to hit the big time.

Constant auditioning in New York soon paid off: both boys

began to get small parts in plays, and Walter met the character

actor William H. Thompson, who gave him a whole approach

to acting.

When Walter joined the touring company of The Sign of the

Crossand performed in St. Louis, he encountered a little girl, full

of energy and everything pertaining to the arts. She didnt laughat his slippers. Rhea was a petite five feet four, a horsewoman, a

smoker, and a sports reporter. Walter and Rhea got married in

secret on the last day of the year 1904, after knowing each other

only a week. Rhea wore a black veil and an ill-fitting dress that

she tried to cover up with her bridal bouquet for the pictures.

My fathers first memory was of riding in front of his mother

on a black horse over cobblestones. She loved a challenge, and

Dad said she was better with animals than with people. Walter

and Rhea separated when Dad was six, and he spent his early

years in boarding schools. On holidays, he would travel with

his father on the vaudeville circuit and with his mother to the

racetracks and ballparks.

In 1917, Dad was misdiagnosed with an enlarged heart andBrights disease, a sometimes fatal kidney ailment. Rhea moved

him to the desert climate of Arizona, where he was confined to

his bed for nearly two years. In that condition, unable to leave

his room, he invented stories. He also had started to draw and

paint, which he did for the rest of his life.

A later, more accurate diagnosis allowed Dad to escape his

detention, and he moved with his mother from Arizona to Los

Angeles, where he acquired a serious interest in boxing. After

school, he often took a long bus ride across town to watch the


11/17

ANJELICA HUSTON

8

matches at the Olympic Auditorium. Encouraged by a friend

who shared his enthusiasm for the sport, Dad took boxing les-

sons at a city playground and eventually won a Lincoln Heights

High School championship in his weight division and twenty-

three out of twenty-five boxing-club matches. He dropped out

of high school two years early, hoping to become a professional

fighter, but his growing passion for writing, painting, and the-

ater soon pulled him in other directions.

When Dad was eighteen, he reunited in New York withWalter, who was working on Broadway. Watching his father

on the stage would provide him with the best education on

the mechanics of acting, and enabled him to obtain a few small

roles. When Dad underwent mastoid surgery that winter, Wal-

ter thought it would be best for him to go somewhere warm to

recover. He gave Dad five hundred dollars and sent him to Vera

Cruz, Mexico, for a couple of months. It was post-revolution,

and the streets were filled with beggars and outlaws.

After taking a train to Mexico City, a journey made all the

more exciting by the constant threat of ambush by bandits, Dad

moved into the Hotel Genova, a former hacienda. Through its

manager, a woman called Mrs. Porter, who had a glass eye and

a wooden leg and wore a wig, he met Hattie Weldon, who ranthe finest riding establishment in the city. Hattie introduced

him to Colonel Jos Olimbrada, a soldier in the Mexican army

who specialized in dressage. Because Dad was running short on

money, Olimbrada suggested that he take an honorary position

in the cavalry and have his choice of the best horses in Mex-

ico to ride. By now he was running with a dangerous crowd,

and soon Rhea arrived to persuade him to return to California,

threatening that Walter would cut off the supply of money if he

did not comply with her wishes.


12/17

A STORY LATELY TOLD

9

Once talkies began in Hollywood, Walter Huston came into his

own as a film actor. His first major role was opposite Gary Coo-

per in The Virginian.He would go on to become a great charac-

ter actor and leading man, starring on stage and screen for the

next twenty years. He portrayed Dodsworth on Broadway and

appeared in the movie adaptation, in addition to acting in films

such asAbraham Lincoln, Rain, The Devil and Daniel Webster,and

Yankee Doodle Dandy.He had a beautiful voice and was famousfor his rendition of September Song, from the musicalKnick-

erbocker Holiday.

Although Walter helped Dad get writing jobs on two films

he was starring in, A House Dividedand Law and Order,Dads

first few years in Hollywood were disappointing to him not only

as a writer but in other ways as well. There was a marriage in

1925 to a girl hed known in high school, Dorothy Harvey, that

lasted only a year. Then in 1933 his career came to a halt when a

car he was driving struck and killed a young woman who darted

out into the street. Dad was absolved but traumatized, and left

for Paris and London, where he became a drifter, down and out,

playing harmonica for change in Hyde Park. After five years in

Europe, during which he took the time to reassess his life, hereturned to Hollywood, intent on making it.

In 1937 he married Lesley Black, an English girl whom he

described as a gentlewoman in his autobiography, An Open

Book.He divorced Black in 1946, when he was forty years old,

and made Evelyn Keyes, the actress who played the sister of

Scarlett OHara in Gone With the Wind,his third wife, on a spur-

of-the-moment trip to Las Vegas after a vodka-fueled dinner at

Romanoff s.


13/17

ANJELICA HUSTON

10

When the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

began its intimidating interrogations in Hollywood in 1947, at

the outset of the Communist witch hunts, Dad, with the writer

Philip Dunne, formed the Committee for the First Amend-

ment and, alongside a group of other well-known artists, such

as Gene Kelly, Humphrey Bogart, Billy Wilder, Burt Lancaster,

Judy Garland, and Edward G. Robinson, bought space in the

trade papers to argue that the hearings were unconstitutional.

For several years following, many innocent people sufferedas a result of having been labeled Communist supporters, even

though many of them, including Dad, had never had an affilia-

tion with the party. This experience fired his interest in work-

ing and living outside the United States.

In 1947, Dad directed Walter in The Treasure of the Sierra

Madre,for which they both won Academy Awards.

My mother, Enrica Georgia Soma, was a ballet dancer before

Tony and I were born. She was five feet eight and finely made.

She had translucent skin, dark hair to her shoulders parted in

the middle, and the expression of a Renaissance Madonna, a

look both wise and nave. She had a small waist, full hips and

strong legs, graceful arms, delicate wrists, and beautiful handswith long, tapering fingers. To this day, my mothers face is the

loveliest in my memoryher high cheekbones and wide fore-

head; the arc of her eyebrows over her eyes, gray-blue as slate;

her mouth in repose, the lips curving in a half smile. To her

friends, she was Ricki.

She was the daughter of a self-proclaimed yogi, Tony Soma,

who owned an Italian restaurant called Tonys Wife on West

Fifty-second Street in New York, where all of Broadway would

come, including the Nelson Rockefellers, Frank Sinatra, and


14/17

A STORY LATELY TOLD

11

Mario Lanza. Grandpa would teach them all how to sing.

Rickis mother, Angelica Fantoni, who had been an opera singer

in Milan, died of pneumonia when Ricki was four. That broke

Grandpas heart. But he took a second wife, Dorothy Fraser,

whom we called Nana, a pleasant, no-nonsense woman who

raised my mother under a strict regime. Grandpa was dictato-

rial and prone to aphorisms such as Theres no intelligence

without the tongue! or Through the knowledge of me, I wish

to share my happiness with you! When we visited, he likedto have us stand on our heads and sing Oh, what a beautiful

morning, oh, what a beautiful day. Then he would continue

on with a few arias.

Tonys Wife had the warm, genteel atmosphere of Northern

Italy in its dark wood, red carpeting, flocked wallpaper, and pho-

tographs of Grandpa in a bow tie posing on his head with vari-

ous Hollywood luminaries. Off to the right, my uncle Nappy,

in a sky-blue blazer, shaking up martinis behind the mirrored

bar, bathed in a pink light. In the back of the restaurant were

the kitchens, which I visited a few times with Grandpa, to see

the pots boiling and the steaks sizzling, men in white shouting

at one another through the steam.

The family lived upstairs in an apartment, which felt discon-nected from the restaurant. It was quiet and dark with uneven

carpeted floors. In the living room there was a piano with sheet

music from which Nana played each morning for Grandpa to

sing while he stood on his head. He claimed to have married

Nana on the basis of her talent as an accompanist.

Grandpa also had a summer house, in Miller Place, a ham-

let on the north shore of Long Island. Grandpa had great rever-

ence for the foundations of the English language and spent long

hours in his round blue mosaic tub meditating on a dictionary


15/17

ANJELICA HUSTON

12

in a bathroom atop his shingled two-story house, overlooking

steep bluffs and the Sound below. When you ran down to the

beach, the sand made an avalanche at your heels.

Philip was my mothers one full sibling. Angelica and Tonys

first child, who had been called George, died as a baby. When

my grandfather remarried, Dorothy gave birth to a girl and

two boysLinda, Nappy, and Fraser. Nappy was named after

Napoleon, because Grandpa claimed to have Corsican blood

running through his veins and thought he was a descendant ofthe great emperor. They all lived in the apartment above the

restaurant.

Occasionally, Grandpa would have Ricki come downstairs

to greet the guests, some of whom were likely to be show peo-

pleTonys Wife had become a speakeasy for a time and had

remained a favorite stopover among the Hollywood set ever

since. One evening, my father walked in and was met by a beau-

tiful fourteen-year-old girl. She told him that she wanted to

be the worlds finest ballerina and described how she wore out

her ballet shoes, making her toes bleed. When he asked her if

she went to the ballet often, she said, Well, no, unfortunately,

she couldnt. It was difficult, she explained, because she was

expected to write a four-page essay for her father every time shewent. So Dad said, Ill tell you what. Ill take you to the ballet,

and you wont have to write an essay. How about that?

But Dad was called away to war. As he later told the story,

quite romantically, hed intended to hire a carriage, buy Ricki a

corsage, and make it an event. Four years later, sitting at a din-

ner table at the producer David Selznicks house in Los Ange-

les, he found himself placed beside a beautiful young woman.

He turned to her and introduced himself: We havent met. My

name is John Huston. And she replied, Oh, but we have. You


16/17

A STORY LATELY TOLD

13

stood me up once. My mother hadnt seen him since she was

fourteen. Having studied under George Balanchine and danced

on Broadway for Jerome Robbins, Mum had been the youngest

member to join the best dance company in the nation, Ballet

Theatre, which later became American Ballet Theatre. Now,

at eighteen, she was under contract to David Selznick, and her

photograph had been published on the June 9, 1947, cover of

Lifemagazine. Philippe Halsman had come to photograph the

companys prima ballerina but had chosen to take my motherspicture instead. In the photo spread inside the magazine, she

was likened to theMona Lisathey shared that secret smile.


17/17

Documents

A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York